Editorial: Campus crazies

Robby Soave of The Daily Beast has compiled a list of the “craziest demand of college kids in 2016.” For those blissfully unfamiliar with today’s breed of college activist, the compilation is quite an eye opener.

Here are just a two examples from Mr. Soave’s rankings:

• Students at Yale demanded that the school revamp a requirement that English majors take courses focusing on great English poets because the featured writers — including Shakespeare — are all white males. The classes, the aggrieved Ivy Leaguers wrote, create “a culture that is especially hostile to students of color.”

•At the University of Arizona, Mr. Soave reports, “the Marginalized Students — a coalition of self-described oppressed students, including the Latino student association, black student association, Asian student association, LGBT student association, Native American student Association and women’s center — want safe spaces for each unique identity group.”

Today’s coddled student agitators mix a healthy dose of totalitarianism and tribalism with a dash of paranoia and incoherent rationalizing to create a climate in which lobotomized drones represent the ultimate ideal and newspeak serves as the only acceptable means of communication.

In the meantime, it’s worth remembering, as Hanna Fearn of Britain’s The Independent recently observed, that “Universities are the cornerstone of free thought. We lose that privilege at our peril.”